


Screaming at the Stars

by restlessqueen



Category: The Society (TV 2019)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Childhood Friends, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Normal High School, Anxiety, Depression, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Harry who has been to rehab and is in therapy, Hospitalization, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Mental Health Issues, Minor Character Death, Nostalgia, Sharing a Bed, more accurately- childhood friends to distant acquaintances to fwbs to lovers, referenced therapy & rehab, somewhat ooc harry, the Harry I think he could be
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-17
Updated: 2020-02-17
Packaged: 2021-02-28 04:01:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22767433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/restlessqueen/pseuds/restlessqueen
Summary: Once upon a time, Harry Bingham had been her best friend. They'd met the summer she'd been eight, Harry, nine. It was the summer Cassandra spent in the hospital. It was the summer Harry's grandad died. They'd been two kids, out of place, waiting rooms and blank hallways. They'd forged their friendship eating vending machine food and chasing each other up and down the hospital halls, getting yelled at by nurses. Harry'd read her the first Harry Potter book, every character a chance to perform. When things got heavy, Martha, Harry's nanny, would take them to the park, or let them swim in the pool at Harry's house, distract them with popsicles and trips to the movies, allowing them to build forts in Harry's living room, pretending she didn't know when they'd climb out on the roof just outside Harry's window late at night and gaze up at the stars. Harry had been her lifeline. An anchor. He'd saved her, that summer. Maybe she'd saved him too.
Relationships: Harry Bingham/Allie Pressman
Comments: 12
Kudos: 91





	Screaming at the Stars

The day Cassandra's heart starts to fail, Allie chooses denial. It's not the first time. Allie had been eight, the summer Cassandra had gotten a new heart. Eight, and spending the days, fingers sticky from the orange popsicles Martha always gave her, getting freckles on her nose and sunburns on her shoulders in the late afternoon sunlight, pretending like her days don't start and end in the squeaky clean halls of the hospital next to Cassandra's bed, in Cassandra's room, that has white walls and white floors and somehow even smells impersonal. That summer has faded in Allie's mind, blurry all around the edges, painful for different reasons. She tries very hard not think about it.

This time, it's fall, the leaves just starting to turn, two weeks into Allie's junior year, and this can't be happening.

“Acute antibody rejection,” Cassandra had said, voice calm and detached in a way that Allie's never managed. She doesn't look sick, face soft and relaxed, curled on their sofa in her favorite blue sweater, steaming mug of tea in hand. Allie doesn't want to believe it.

“But you take your medication! It's been years!” Her sister, her perfect, poised, always in charge, sister isn't someone that this happens to. She's just not.

“It just happens sometimes.” But it doesn't. Shouldn't. Not to Cassandra. It's too much to absorb, it sends that summer spiraling back in sharp, vicious clarity and Allie wants nothing to do with it. Allie doesn't want to remember. So she runs. Out of her house, out of her life, into the party at Jason's house that she said she'd never go to, stumbles into a different version of herself, one where she's just seventeen, and her sister is healthy, and her biggest concern in the world is what Will thinks about the way she looks tonight. It might be a mistake.

Allie doesn't think she's a party person. She's not really sure, because she's never actually gone to one, not since “party” meant someone's birthday, skinned knees at the roller rink, too sweet frosting on the store bought cake, and Neapolitan striped ice cream sticking to her fingers. Cassandra isn't a party person, which makes Allie not a party person by default. Cassandra says high school parties are all just an excuse to sneak beer, sometimes something stronger, from the liquor cabinet and kiss people you shouldn't or wouldn't normally kiss, listen to bad music, make decisions you'll regret.

So it's intentionally to this world, this place where Cassandra would never ever be and would never think to look for Allie, that she escapes to. Because Allie knows, even if she's never gone, that on a Friday night, the edges of summer still hanging on, in a small town where nothing ever happens, that someone's hosting a party. Either Jason or Luke or Harry.

It's not hard to find- Jason's house lit up, doors open, music and bodies spilling out onto the big front porch and sprawling lawn. It feels like the whole world is here, never mind that Allie's world is small. Standing before it, Allie's no longer sure this is where she wants to be, but she hates the idea of backing down, tucking her tail between her legs and running home to where Cassandra might be dying.

She doesn't want to think about that. So instead, Allie takes a deep breath and puts her foot on the bottom step of the front porch. Onward. Down the rabbit hole. _We're all mad here._

The music is so loud inside the house, something with a deep bass and mumbled lyrics she can't understand, and Allie can hardly think. She finds herself winding through bodies, searching out an escape from the pounding in her ears, maybe something to drink so she won't mind so much. Allie isn't an alcohol person, either. She and Cassandra had snuck some spiked eggnog last Christmas, and once even a bottle of wine when their parents weren't home, but that's the extent of Allie's foray into alcoholic beverages.

She sees Becca in one corner, short black dress, standing close to a boy with his back to Allie, their faces inches apart. Across the room, she catches a glimpse of Jason and Luke playing beer pong. It occurs to her, suddenly, that she doesn't belong here, that there's no one here for her. She doesn't fit into this picture, doesn't even know how. She's Cassandra's shadow, and how can she be here without her sister to cast light? Becca starts to tilt her face in Allie's direction, so she turns and pushes her way out of the room before she can be spotted by someone who will make any of this feel real.

She finds a cooler of unopened beers in the kitchen, bobbing in what's mostly ice melt, glass too cold against her fingers. The beer is bitter, sharp on her tongue, nothing like that bottle of sweet wine, and Allie grimaces at the taste, but she keeps sipping it anyway. This is what you do at parties, right? Drink terrible beer, make terrible decisions. She's one for two so far.

The music is still too loud, so Allie chases the quiet, beer still in hand, up the stairs, down a hallway, another smaller staircase, and then, finally, into a room cloaked in quiet, lights out. There's no one here, this little room tucked away at the top of the house. She can still feel the bass thumping through the floor and vibrating up her legs, but it's blessedly muffled here. There's the barest amount of moonlight filtering in through an open window, just enough to see by.

The room is mostly stacks of boxes with labels written in large loopy writing, things like “ _Jason's baseball trophies”_ and _“the holiday china.”_ Everything's a little dusty, clearly a place no one tends to venture. But there's a worn sofa tucked in one corner, and a tiny bookcase propped up against one wall, just enough to make things feel ever so slightly cozy. The sofa sags slightly in the middle when Allie sits down on it, still sipping her beer and wondering what exactly she's supposed to do now. She'd come here, to this house and this party, to escape the reality Cassandra had laid bare before her, but now she's trying to escape this place too.

A shadow shifts in the corner of Allie's vision and she startles, nearly spilling her beer, a flicker of movement outside the window. _There's someone sitting on the roof._ And, _of course there's someone sitting on the roof_. _Why else would the window be open?_ Allie considers her options; she doesn't think they've noticed her yet. She could go back to the party, but she doesn't want to go back down there, she doesn't want to avoid Becca's eyes or talk to the drunk versions of people she doesn't talk to sober. Before she can overthink it, Allie scrambles up from the sofa, abandoning her beer, and ducks out of the window and onto the roof.

It's colder than she expected. There's a crisp breeze, stinging her cheeks and chasing away any of the alcohol that had crept into her veins. She can just make out someone's silhouette, sitting with their back to her, a dark smudge against the sky, knees pulled up to their chest, face tilted to the stars.

“Hey,” Allie says, soft, balanced by the edge of the window, the bass downstairs thudding in time with the blood pounding in her ears. They turn their face to her, and Allie's heart stutters in her chest.

Harry Bingham. She hasn't looked him in the face since God only knows when. Not for years. Not really. The corner of his mouth lifts, not quite a smile, and Allie's frozen to the spot, wondering if she should flee. She couldn't make her legs work even she wanted to; she isn't sure if she wants to.

“Hey.” There's an edge to Harry's voice, like he's been drinking or crying. It's deeper than she remembered. She should have known it was him; she should have known as soon as she'd seen that shadow outside the window, but she's good at forgetting and she'd pushed it all down- the clean, white halls of the hospital, Cassandra's heart monitor beeping away, how warm those summer nights had been, the popsicles, the sunburns, the freckles on her nose. And Harry.

The summer she'd been eight and Cassandra had been in the hospital, when she'd met Harry Bingham in one of the featureless waiting rooms, legs swinging over the clean floor, not long enough to touch the ground. Harry, who'd been in Cassandra's grade, quick smile and all bravado, with his battered paperbacks and the heavy gold ring he'd worn on his thumb because it was too big for his fingers. Harry, with his big ideas and his nanny, Martha, who'd given them the orange popsicles and let them stay up late, pillow forts in Harry's living room and his messy hair in the morning and the way his eyes had gone all red the day his grandad finally died.

Allie swallows it all back down, the memories that bubble up in her chest. She doesn't think about that. She never thinks about any of that.

“Did you want to sit?” Harry asks, one eyebrow quirked. It would be careless if he didn't sound so tired. She can only just make out his features in the low light, can't tell if he looks as tired as he sounds. And how would she know, anyway? She doesn't know this version of Harry- Harry who fits in seamlessly with whatever group he wants, who basks in the spotlight, who half the girls in school daydream about. His gold ring winks in the low light; he wears it on his pinky now. It's been a long time since they knew each other. Even so, Allie doesn't say no, she doesn't flee back through the window. She sits down.

Harry's tipped his head back to the sky, his jaw a hard line that Allie feels the sudden, insane temptation to touch. Instead, she follows his gaze. There's a smattering of stars across the sky, less than she remembers seeing as a child, tiny pinpricks in the dark. He's always loved the stars.

“Where's Cassandra?” Harry asks.

Allie's heart dips. She knows she comes as an addendum to Cassandra to most people, but it's different hearing it from Harry, even after everything. She came here to be separate, to forget.

“I don't want to talk about Cassandra.” She doesn't want to think about Cassandra. That's why she's here. Harry glances at her briefly, but she refuses to look at him, so she can't make out the expression on his face.

 _Where's Kelly?_ The words linger on the tip of her tongue, but she doesn't say them. She knows the answer, and she'd only be asking to touch on a nerve. Everyone knows Harry and Kelly, West Ham High's resident “it couple,” had a very public break up two weeks ago. People have been whispering about it in the halls ever since, though no one really seems to know exactly what caused it.

“How's Martha?” is what comes out instead. She thinks she sees surprise flit through Harry's eyes, the edges of his lips turning upward in a way that makes her think of snowball fights and hot cocoa with extra marshmallows and the big roaring fireplace in his living room.

“Perpetually irritated as ever. She says Kitty's even worse than I was.”

“I find that very hard to believe.”

There are crinkles at the corners of Harry's eyes, so she knows he's smiling, a real one, the one she's used to. Harry's quiet, still in a way he never is at school anymore. Allie can't help but watch him, searching for the bits of the boy she remembers. He's close enough that she can feel the warmth of his shoulder next to hers.

“You never come out to these things,” Harry says, finally, still not looking at her. It's a question, even if it's not, and it's still one Allie isn't interested in answering. There are other words layered just under it, ones he doesn't say, that she can't quite make out.

“Yeah.”

He looks at her then, searching. Allie meets his eyes, her breath shallow in her throat. The moment spins out, splitting, its twin lingering just below the surface, a different roof, the same boy. That time, the air had still been warm, sweat on the back of her neck, Harry's hand on her cheek.

Allie feels it like a magnetic pull, the instinct to lean into him, lips brushing. She almost doesn't believe she's doing it, like it can't be real. It's happening then and now, except last time Harry'd been the one to close the distance, and Allie had been the one to pull away. Harry doesn't pull away.

So then she's kissing Harry Bingham under the stars, the moment no longer running parallel to her memory as her fingers curl over his shoulder, and Harry presses closer. Last time, he hadn't kissed her like _that_. But she'd not really given him the chance.

This is how she somehow ends up back through the window, on the sofa in the corner, Harry's hands wandering up the back of her shirt, warm and rough, and probably a mistake. Allie doesn't know what she's thinking. She isn't thinking, clothes hitting the floor, Harry's lips on her collarbone. She's never done this, never let anyone this close, and some part of her thinks- this isn't how Cassandra would tell her it should be, but then... It's Harry. It's Harry, and Allie remembers the way he'd looked at her that night the summer before eighth grade, and she still trusts him. It's not something Cassandra would approve of, and in a moment of impulsive rebellion, there's something that much sweeter about it.

The day she learns her sister might be dying, Allie loses her virginity to Harry Bingham at a party she was never supposed to be at. Drink terrible beer, make terrible decisions. Two for two.

* * *

Once upon a time, Harry Bingham had been her best friend. They'd met the summer she'd been eight, Harry, nine. It was the summer Cassandra spent in the hospital. It was the summer Harry's grandad died. They'd been two kids, out of place, waiting rooms and blank hallways. They'd forged their friendship eating vending machine food and chasing each other up and down the hospital halls, getting yelled at by nurses. Harry'd read her the first Harry Potter book, every character a chance to perform. When things got heavy, Martha, Harry's nanny, would take them to the park, or let them swim in the pool at Harry's house, distract them with popsicles and trips to the movies, allowing them to build forts in Harry's living room, pretending she didn't know when they'd climb out on the roof just outside Harry's window late at night and gaze up at the stars. Harry had been her lifeline. An anchor. He'd saved her, that summer. Maybe she'd saved him too.

Allie lies awake, hours after sneaking back into her house, memories she can no longer push away swirling around her head. She's got a bruise on her collarbone where Harry's mouth had been, and if she thinks about it too hard, tries to justify her decisions to herself, she'll go mad. She doesn't do this. She isn't a party person, or an alcohol person, or a _Harry Bingham_ person. Except... Maybe she doesn't know that. Maybe she never got a chance to know that. Cassandra isn't any of those things. But Allie isn't Cassandra, no matter how hard she tries to be.

She'll forget about it, Allie decides. She'll pretend it never happened. She's good at that. She wears denial better than anyone else she knows. She'll forget about it, and Cassandra will never, ever find out. Allie doesn't think she could bear the look on her sister's face if she found out what happened last night. Or Will. Allie's stomach turns over. Will. Who she's had a crush on for the past six months, who always has a smile for her, who _maybe_ , just maybe, Allie thinks, might be starting to feel the same way about her. She's really made a mess of things.

She shouldn't have gone to the party. She should have called Will, asked him to hang out. Maybe gotten the courage up to kiss him instead of Harry. Harry, who is nothing but bad decisions. Fast cars, pretty girls, reckless decisions, eye of the hurricane, Harry Bingham. She'd let her nostalgia cloud her judgment. She's not little Allie with sun drawn freckles and Harry's not the boy who'd she taught to braid her hair, fallen asleep next to on a rooftop, fingers tangled together. They're not those people. Not anymore.

Allie ghosts through the weekend, wishing she could just turn off her brain. She goes through the paces, feeling a half beat off. She has trouble meeting her sister's eyes. Cassandra doesn't know what Allie did on Friday night, she doesn't know about the rooftop, or Harry, but she might find out Allie went to the party. Apparently Becca _had_ seen her, because she'd texted Allie, which she hadn't gotten until much later, being a little... preoccupied with Harry. And if Becca noticed her, that means it's entirely possible other people did too. Cassandra has an uncanny ability to know exactly what is going on with who, even though she keeps her own social circle small.

Cassandra doesn't go to school on Monday; she has an appointment at the hospital. Allie tries to block out her mother and sister discussing it over breakfast. She doesn't want to know. If she knows, that makes it real. So instead, she slips out of the house as quickly as she can and walks to school slow, backpack hanging from one shoulder, wishing she could just rewind time a few days, back to when Cassandra was okay and Allie could bask in Will's smile and she hadn't slept with Harry Bingham, hadn't cracked her chest open and let this riot of conflicting feelings spill out all over the place.

Usually, Will meets Allie and Cassandra by the side entrance of the school, and the three of them walk in together. They go and find Gordie in the A.V. room, where he's generally tinkering with something Allie doesn't understand, always perpetually early. Allie brings coffee in a thermos, and they steal paper cups from the teachers lounge, pass the coffee around and wait for first bell to ring. But this morning, Will isn't there. And Cassandra isn't there. And Allie left her coffee sitting on the kitchen counter, and she's not sure she's ever stood in a crowd of people, the morning bustle streaming past her, and felt so deeply lonely.

She forges onward, alone. Just outside the doors, she catches a glimpse of Harry, head thrown back, laughing, his friends crowding close to him like moths to a flame, like they can't help it. Harry's always been magnetic. Allie remembers his face in the moonlight, the way she'd felt compelled to lean closer. It wasn't her fault; if you get close enough to Harry, he draws you into his orbit, planets rotating around a sun, basking in his light. Even now, her feet ache to drift in his direction. Those aren't her friends, he's not her friend anymore, but his gravitational pull is strong.

He catches her looking, the slightest falter to his smile, a crack in the facade. It strikes her then, for the first time, that maybe the Harry that floats through school, leaving others in his wake, isn't entirely authentic. This is the version of him she doesn't know, the one that had appeared at the beginning of Allie's eighth grade year, all smiles that don't touch his eyes properly. This is the Harry that Allie isn't sure she _wants_ to know, like an imposter in the skin of someone she called a friend. She breaks eye contact with him, pushes any thoughts of Friday night to the back of her mind.

When Allie turns around, Will has arrived. But he's not leaning against the wall at their usual meeting spot. Instead, he's just around the corner, where she wouldn't have seen him if Allie hadn't drifted toward Harry and his friends. He's smiling. And he has his arm around Kelly's shoulders. Kelly. Homecoming queen, always perfectly pulled together, long shiny brown hair and blue eyes, Kelly. The girl everyone should hate a little bit, but can't because she's too genuinely nice. Harry's Kelly.

For the second time that week, Allie feels the past right at the surface. She's watching Will with his eyes lit up, looking at Kelly Aldrich like she put the stars in the sky, and it's also a year ago, the day she'd walked into school and Harry had been leaning up against Kelly's locker, looming over her with that smile that crinkles the corner of his eyes. It's that all over again. It's that exact same feeling, all the air rushing out of her lungs.

“You didn't know?”

Allie didn't hear him arrive, but somehow Harry's at her shoulder, his crowd of friends dispersed, sent away, she doesn't know. She can't read the expression on his face at all. He doesn't look upset, exactly, just tired. No, she didn't know. How could she have known?

Allie shakes her head, not trusting her voice, until she's sucked in a few deep breaths. “Since when?”

“I don't know. Not long. She didn't cheat on me. She just...” Harry runs a hand through his hair, managing to look both disheveled and irritatingly beautiful at the same time, “realized that she wanted something else. Someone else.”

Will. And it's not Kelly's fault that she's beautiful and sparkling and could make anyone fall in love with her. It's not Kelly's fault that she's happened to want exactly the right boys at exactly the right time to put a crack in Allie's heart.

“You wanna skip?” Harry's watching her with something a little too close to understanding. She hates that expression. She hates the way it makes her feel seen and vulnerable and too easy to burn. So she focuses on something else, on the absurdity of the question. She and Harry don't hang out. Friday night was a fluke.

“Why?” Allie asks, suspicious. If Harry thinks he can just smile at her and offer an escape from school and she'll just fall right back into bed with him, well... Now that she considers it, this small rebellion against her sister, against Will, against these stupid feelings clanging around in her chest, he might be right. She might just do that. But he shouldn't assume.

“Because,” Harry says, arms out palms up, a sweeping gesture. “Things kinda suck, and it's no one's fault really, so we only get to be mad at the world.”

“That doesn't make any sense,” Allie tells him.

“Okay, whatever. I'm skipping. You wanna come?” She shouldn't. She does.

“Let's go.”

Harry's house is exactly how she remembers it. Allie hasn't been inside it in three years, but even the houseplants are precisely where she remembered them, kept alive only by Martha's sheer force of will. The house has always been overwhelmingly large to Allie, nothing like the cozy little house her family shares. This feels like a place from a different time, one that should be full of women in ballgowns, glittering with jewels. She's never quite sure if she likes that or not.

Harry passes through the space with the careless familiarity that can only come from being raised in such wealth. Allie trails him through the entrance hall, the kitchen, and out to the back of the house. Someone's let the greenery around the pool grow, it spills all over the place in a way that feels so startlingly un-Bingham like that it takes Allie a moment to register that just a few feet in front of her, Harry's taken his shirt off.

“What're you doing?”

“It's the last week that'll probably be warm enough to swim,” Harry answers, kicking his shoes off, fingers at the button of his pants. Allie looks away. “The pool's being drained this weekend for winter.”

“Last swim of the season,” Allie says quietly to herself, the memories tripping over themselves at his words. On the first day of fall when Allie was twelve, Harry recently thirteen, they'd stolen all the the dish soap, hand soap, and body wash out of the house and poured it all in the pool. Harry's mother had been furious, Martha had laughed so hard she'd cried. Harry's parents had the pool drained two weeks early. Harry'd told the story like it was some grand adventure, embellishing the size of the bubbles, and lamenting the early “last swim of the season,” soaking up all the attention he could get.

“Last swim of the season, Pressman.” Harry's grin is wide; it touches his eyes. He's standing there in just his boxer briefs, all lit up, like half an hour ago they hadn't been standing shoulder to shoulder, commiserating because they can't have the people they want. He's Harry like she remembers him, easy, confident, comfortable, Harry. Allie shoves him in the pool.

He comes up out of the water laughing. Maybe for a day, Allie thinks, as she tugs her shirt up over her head and tosses it onto one of the pool chairs, the ridiculous ones with the monogrammed pillows, and shimmies out of her jeans, maybe she can pretend the last three years never happened. She jumps in after him.

They stay by the pool for hours, swimming, splashing, challenging each other to diving contests, then dripping all over the the patio furniture and shivering a little in the air that's just slightly too cool. Harry disappears inside and comes back with big fluffy towels and box of those orange popsicles that Allie can't associate with anything but childhood and summer and _Harry_.

She eats one, leaning against one of the monogrammed pillows, all wrapped up in a towel, her hair wet and tangled. Harry's sitting at the edge of the pool, his legs dangling into the water. He kind of looks like how she remembers, except he's not all awkward limbs anymore. The sun is starting to sink a little, not quite brushing the tops of the trees. School will be letting out soon.

“I should go,” Allie says, finally. This day, it's all been pretend. They've been pretending, like things are normal, like it's three years ago and they're just a couple of stupid kids, best friends. They haven't talked about anything, and if she stays, they'll probably have to.

“Got somewhere to be?”

“Don't you?”

“Nah.” Harry rescues a small black beetle that's struggling at the edge of the pool and dumps it out onto the concrete. “No one's coming home.”

“Where's Kitty?” Harry's parents being away for work has never been much of a surprise. Allie doesn't really understand what his dad does, but it's something with finances. His mom's a lawyer, and even when they were kids Allie remembers her spending more nights at her office than away from it. But Kitty should be here. And Martha.

“Staying at her friend Sasha's. Martha is on vacation.”

Allie hesitates. There's a small piece of her that wants to stay, that's always wanted to find a way to fold Harry back into her life, back into that space that he left when she'd lost him. That thought is terrifying.

“We could order a pizza,” Harry says, “black olives and banana peppers.”

For a moment, Allie thinks, oddly, that she might cry. It's such a stupid thing. They'd had it a million times, of course he remembers. But she'd forgotten.

“No anchovies. You promise?” He'd always tried to sneak them in.

“I promise.”

“Pinky swear?”

Harry laughs, but stretches out across the distance between them to link his pinky with hers. “Pinky swear.”

Allie never really stood a chance, saying no to him. “Okay.”

“Up and at 'em, then, Pressman,” Harry says, hopping to his feet and holding out a hand to haul Allie back up as well. Maybe they can pretend a little longer.

She and Harry throw their underwear into the dryer, and change into more comfortable clothes. Harry into a pair of sweats and a t-shirt that looks like it's seen better days. Allie into one of Harry's drama club shirts and a pair of basketball shorts she's a little suspicious of. _They're clean_ , Harry insists.

While Harry orders the pizza, Allie gets her fingers tangled in her hair, trying to tease out the knots. Harry hangs up the phone and leans his elbows against the kitchen island, watching her fight to get her hair back in a respectable attempt at a braid. His gaze is too heavy. Allie doesn't meet his eyes.

“I could do that.”

Allie freezes. He could. She taught him how. But she's not so sure getting so close to Harry is a good idea. She's not sure any of this has been a good idea. She has no idea what she's doing. They can't go on like this, just _not talking about it_. Any of it.

“Okay.” But she finds herself caving again. The truth is, she's missed Harry. She's missed him a lot.

He doesn't say anything else as he comes around the counter to stand behind her, slides his fingers into her hair. His hands are steady, methodical, he's actually a lot better at this than Allie is. In no time at all, Harry's managed to comb out all the remaining knots and wrangle her hair into a solid french braid.

“Thanks.”

“No problem. I do it for Kitty all the time.” He hasn't moved away, and Allie's incredibly aware of his presence at her back. Harry smells like chlorine and orange popsicles and summer. She turns around. He's very close. Close enough, that when Allie tilts her chin up to look at him and he tilts his down to meet her eyes, his hair brushes her forehead. _Bad decisions_.

And this is how she ends up letting Harry Bingham take off all the clothes she just put on. But at least they make it up the stairs and to a proper bed this time. She'll count that as win, if she ever manages to mentally acknowledge that somehow in the course of four days, she's gone from a virgin who'd never been to a high school party to maybe casually sleeping with Harry Bingham. Or whatever this is. She's not sure, because neither of them have said a word since she stood up on her tiptoes in the kitchen and kissed him again.

And in the aftermath, lying naked in Harry's bed, Allie's mind starts to slip back to how she got here. She's here because her sister's heart is failing, because Cassandra might be dying, and Allie would do just about anything to not have to think about that- even stumble right into a situation practically brimming with baggage.

The first night Allie's parents had let her sleep over at Harry's, when Martha had helped them build a huge blanket fort in Harry's living room, chairs and sheets and pillows, held together by clothespins and careful construction, they'd stayed up late inside the protection of its walls, Harry reading aloud from his book about magicians. He'd seemed to Allie, then, to be a boy made of magic, with his towering house and his unshakable boldness.

So she'd voiced the thing she'd been afraid to say to anyone else, the little kernel of despair that had made a home behind her ribs. “Cassandra might die.”

Harry had looked at her over the top of his book, eyes serious and warm and so, so sure. “Cassandra's not going to die,” he'd said, like it was the simplest thing in the world. Like he could just make it real by saying it. Allie had believed him.

She wants that magic back. She wants that magic now, more than anything in the world.

“Cassandra's body is rejecting her heart,” Allie says, quiet, like that can make it less true. “They say it might kill her.”

Harry's eyes glimmer a little in the half light, a frown creasing his lips. But this time, he doesn't say “Cassandra's not going to die.” Instead, he touches her wrist, slides his palm against hers, fingers twining together. He doesn't say anything. His eyes whisper he doesn't have any magic left to give her.

They eat their pizza back in the kitchen. Allie's legs are too short to reach the floor, sitting at the tall chairs at Harry's kitchen counter, and she swings her feet, letting her heels thud into the wooden bar connecting the chair legs. It's quiet. She doesn't know what to do with that. She used to share long silences with him, back when they'd spend hazy afternoons curled up on opposite ends of the sofa reading their way away from the world. Now, the quiet only reminds her of all the things they haven't said.

“Do you have anything to drink?” Allie asks. She's not sure how to do this, be around him in still moments without something that qualifies it. And if he can pour her a glass of wine and she can just not think about it, then maybe the silence won't feel so devastatingly loud.

Harry watches her for several breaths, like he's searching for something. “We don't keep anything in the house anymore.”

“Why not?” She doesn't understand. Harry's _known_ for his parties, for raiding his father's liquor cabinet, for brewing the best cocktail in school. It's one of the things everyone knows about him, whether they actually know him or not.

Harry's brow furrows, his lips pressed into a little frown. He twists his ring around his finger, once, twice, three times. “I was in rehab over the summer,” he says, slow, like this is information she would already have.

“What?”

Harry shrugs. “Three months clean and sober.” There's something a little mocking about the chipper tone he uses, like he's mimicking someone else.

“I-” But Allie doesn't actually have anything to say to that. “I didn't know.”

“Well, then you're one of the few. My parents told everyone I was at camp, but Jason found out so,” he gives another little shrug, like it doesn't matter, even though she's pretty sure it matters a lot.

Allie's mind slides out of focus, wondering exactly what had happened, what had led to rehab for Harry at age seventeen, and he must see some of it on her face, because his expression settles into something so neutral, so impersonal, she can't see through it at all.

“You can ask,” he says.

“What...” but she doesn't know how to do that, and to be honest, she has no right to. This really isn't much better than going home and facing Cassandra and her heart. This is painful in that kind of gut deep, inescapable way and she doesn't want to face it either. Harry was supposed to offer her a day of freedom from reality, but instead here he is, with visceral, bleeding wounds.

“It was alcohol and prescription pills. Really, it was self medication for clinical depression and anxiety, with a healthy helping of an out of control panic disorder. So yeah, it's basically a giant fucking can of worms, a little of something for everyone to judge.” There's a hard set to Harry's jaw, like he's daring her to try.

Allie has to swallow around the lump in her throat. “I wouldn't have asked you to tell me all that.”

“Everyone already knows. You would have heard it soon enough, anyway.” He turns his ring once around his finger, then glances in her direction. “Shit happens.”

“Sure.” But this feels bigger than that to Allie. And Harry... Harry who just this morning could stand in front of the school, laughing like he doesn't have a care in the world, even when he knows everyone's been talking about him, he's better at pretending than she ever knew.

Allie leaves half an hour later, dressed in her own clothes, trying to smile at the small talk Harry makes, carefully ignoring the truths he'd spilled out right in front of her. In her head, Harry has always been summer, the soft scrape of pages turning, dive bombing into a pool, stargazing on the roof, orange popsicles, fireflies in jars. It's never changed, because she hadn't given it a chance to. She'd run away before it could. Now, he's other things too. The anxious twist of a ring around his finger, a bruise on her collarbone, body heat, hurt so deep she could fall into it, and laughing because otherwise you'll cry. He's pretending.

By the time she gets home, she's almost forgotten she'd skipped school, forgotten that they'd have called her parents and left a message about her absence. She missed dinner too. She's never missed dinner. Her mother is waiting in the living room with crossed arms and a frown so deep, Allie thinks it might stick. Cassandra is curled on the sofa under her favorite blanket with a copy of Wuthering Heights.

“Where have you been?”

Allie shrugs. She doesn't have an answer prepared, hadn't thought this far. She can't exactly say she spent the day swimming in Harry's pool and eating popsicles and, oh yeah, maybe having sex with him too. It's not like she _planned_ it.

“You're going to have to do better than that,” Her mother says, stern. From the sofa, Cassandra's watching her with big, questioning eyes. But, somehow, Cassandra finding out feels worse than if her mother does.

The thing is, Cassandra's always hated Harry. Or maybe “hate” is a strong word, but even when he and Allie were running around as kids, scraped knees and make believe and nonsense, Cassandra hadn't wanted him there. She said he was immature, spoiled, stuck up. Allie never understood it. Harry and Cassandra are the two most brilliant people she knows and they should fit together because they both fit with her. But there had been friction from the start. And then Harry had beaten Cassandra for 8 th  grade class president, and ever since then it had been both of them, always needing to one up the other, at each other's throats, antagonizing.

“I was just wandering around town,” Allie responds, hoping no one saw her leave with Harry, hoping Cassandra hasn't heard that. “It's just a lot to absorb,” she continues, gesturing at her sister. “I didn't want to be at school if Cassandra wasn't.” That last part's not a lie. It's not the whole truth, either.

The lines around her mother's mouth soften slightly. “You should have just said if you wanted to stay home today.”

“I know. I'm sorry.”

“Next time, ask. We'll talk about it.” Allie's mom doesn't want to have this conversation any more than Allie does, that's what it comes down to. She's tired. They're all tired.

“Okay.” And then Allie escapes up the stairs to her bedroom and wonders if the riot inside her chest will quiet anytime soon.

Cassandra slips into her room after everyone else has fallen asleep. She climbs into Allie's bed next to her, and it feels so much like when they were younger, when Cassandra would sneak in and they'd read late into the night, or talk about someone Cassandra has a crush on.

“Where were you really?” he sister asks. But she can't tell her sister that. If she tells her about Harry, Cassandra will just tell her how much of a mistake it all is. Allie doesn't want Harry to be a mistake. Or she wants to be allowed to make it. Or something. All she knows is she won't be able to stand it if she admits the truth and Cassandra looks at her that way she does sometimes, like she pities Allie for not understanding the real truth of things.

“I was just out. How was the hospital?”

Cassandra hesitates. “It was okay.” They're both not saying things. They're both not willing to call each other on it. Better to just not have to talk about it at all.

“Will's dating Kelly,” Allie finds herself saying, without realizing she was going to. “Did you hear that?”

Guilt flits across her sister's face. “Yeah. I found out on Friday. I was going to tell you, but then... You know, the heart thing. And you ran out and I just... I should have told you I guess. I know you like him.”

“It's not anyone's fault,” Allie finds herself echoing Harry's words. Somehow, the news about Will and Kelly feels so distant, like it's something that happened months ago. Her head is stuck somewhere else.

“I heard that Gwen and Clark hooked up at a party at Jason's on Friday,” Cassandra tells her. This is something they do, trade bits of silly gossip, search for things the other doesn't know. It started because people talk about Cassandra a lot. They'd take turns repeating the rumors they heard back at each other, that Cassandra was part cyborg, that her heart had belonged to a mob boss, that her blood is the wrong color. Slowly it had changed, shifted into other things they'd heard about other people.

“I heard Greg Dewey passed out on Jason's lawn and didn't wake up until the sprinklers went off.”

“I heard Campbell got suspended for nearly blowing up the Chem lab.”

Allie snorts. “Sounds like him.” Something in her chest is unknotting, spooling into the comfortable familiar. This is the first thing that's felt normal since Friday. Allie keeps running away from one thing and then headlong into something else she doesn't know how to deal with, but this is easy. This is right. She's just drifting off when Cassandra says something else.

“Did you hear Harry spent the summer in rehab?” Cassandra asks, voice low with the hum of gossip. The riot in Allie's chest returns. She can't shake the look in Harry's eyes when he'd told her, jaw sharp and hands fidgeting. He'd looked haunted.

“Yeah,” Allie says, soft. “I heard that.”

* * *

Cassandra comes to school the next day. Will meets them at their usual spot. No one says anything about Kelly or Cassandra's absence. Allie doesn't see Harry anywhere, and the three of them meet Gordie in the A.V. room and Allie passes around her usual thermos of coffee, and it's like none of it ever happened. Cassandra is fine and Will isn't with Kelly and Allie didn't go to that party on Friday night or skip school with Harry.

When the warning bell rings, they pile out of the room, all headed different directions for first period. Allie's three steps behind everyone else, when-

“Hey,” Harry's fingers warm on her wrist, drawing her back around the corner.

Allie's so surprised to see him, she doesn't know what to say except, “Hey.”

“I...” Harry glances over his shoulder, then back at her, bouncing a little on the balls of his feet. “I have to tell you something.”

“Okay?” She really hopes this hallway stays empty, that Will or Gordie or Cassandra or anyone else in their friend group won't come around the corner any second. She doesn't know how to explain this, the way Harry's crowded her a little up against the wall, how close he's standing.

“I just...” His breath shudders in his chest. He's _nervous_ , Allie realizes, and Allie has never seen the public version of Harry nervous. She doesn't know what could make him look like _that_. Harry's a study in projecting confidence.

“Look, I don't know if you told anyone about Friday, but I didn't. And Grizz just told me that he heard some people saying that we hooked up at the party and I just... I didn't want you to hear it and think I was talking about you like that. I've, um... I've said some shit in the past about some people that I'm not proud of, stuff I never should have said, so I know I don't have the best track record, but I wouldn't do that. I wanted you to know- I didn't do that.”

“People _know_?” Allie breathes, because that's the only thing she can think about right this second. People know about her and Harry and that means Cassandra will hear it, that means she'll have to explain herself and-

“I don't think people _know_. How could they know? It's just, you know, we came downstairs at the same time, and it's one of Jason's parties, and it's just something people talk about.” She suddenly becomes aware that Harry's not let go of her hand. She can feel her pulse at all the points where's he touching her, too fast, out of control.

“Okay.” It's not okay, really. Allie thinks she deserves to keep Friday night to herself, if she wants, but there's nothing she can do to stop the rumors now. They aren't wrong.

“I really didn't tell anybody,” Harry says, voice hushed, even though they're alone. There's a glimmer of anxiety in his eyes, and this is exactly what someone might do to cover their ass, come to her and tell her all about it, but... She trusts Harry. That's how they got here. If she didn't trust him, Friday never would have happened. Yesterday never would have happened. Things are different now between them than they used to be, but he's never given her a reason not to trust him.

“I believe you.” Harry's shoulders dip slightly, relief in every line of his body.

“Thanks.” The barest edge of a smile pulls at one corner of his mouth. He squeezes her hand. “I should go.” He hesitates, like he might say something more, might do something more, but instead his fingers slip from her hand and then he's striding away, down the still empty hallway. Allie stays there, leaning against the wall, willing her heart to slow. She's honestly not sure if it's erratic pounding is fear of the rumor going around school, or a reaction to Harry's proximity. None of this was ever supposed to be so complicated. God, everything is complicated.

It turns out Allie doesn't need to worry about the rumor, because Cassandra thinks it's absurd. She brings it to Allie's attention over lunch, giggling a little, because _“Honestly, couldn't they come up with something more believable?”_

Allie chews her sandwich slowly, and tries not to let anything show on her face. Across the cafeteria, Harry and his friends have co-opted their usual table, the biggest one available, and he looks so comfortable, not at all like he'd pulled Allie away this morning to beg her to believe he didn't start a rumor about them. He looks like someone who absolutely couldn't care less what everyone is saying about him.

“Allie?” The whole table is looking at her- Cassandra, Will, Sam, Becca, Gordie.

“What?” She'd drifted away from the conversation, watching Harry, being a complete and total idiot. It's like her brain wants her to get caught.

“You weren't at the party, were you?” Cassandra asks. Allie meets Becca's eyes across the table. She knows. That means Sam probably already does as well; they tell each other everything. But if the expression on Becca's face is to be believed, Cassandra doesn't know yet.

“No, of course not. Why would I go to a party at Jason's?”

Cassandra smiles. “You wouldn't, obviously.” Becca's chin dips, her eyes sliding away. Allie swallows the scream that wants to rise up her throat. Becca won't sell her out, but that doesn't mean this is a secret she can keep forever.

Across the cafeteria, Harry's standing on his seat, arms spread wide, smile wider. She can't hear what he's saying, but everyone around him has their faces turned upward, captivated. She's never known how he does that, draw people in.

“Typical Harry Bingham,” Cassandra says, rolling her eyes. Allie isn't sure why that's such a bad thing, never really has been, but she keeps her mouth shut. What Cassandra doesn't know won't hurt her. What Cassandra doesn't know can't hurt Allie, either.

In the end, it's one of the longest days of Allie's life. By the time school lets out, she feels like she's aged a decade. It's not just lying to Cassandra and her friends, it's the whispers in the hallways, the way eyes follow her that never used to, it's Harry. She has no idea where exactly she stands with Harry. And that's her own fault, she knows. They're not friends, exactly, but they're not nothing either.

When they arrive home, their mother is waiting for them, anxiety in the lines around her mouth. Allie stills just inside the door, looking at their mom, but Cassandra continues forward with slow, confident steps.

“The doctor's called.”

Allie flees upstairs before she can hear the rest. If she doesn't know, it isn't happening. If she can block it out, Cassandra will be fine. Everything will be fine. She just needs a distraction.

She has a “Harry” box, somewhere in the back of her closet. She isn't proud of it. Harry wasn't her boyfriend, he hadn't died, erasing him wasn't going to change anything. But sometime in eighth grade, she'd purged her room of anything and everything Harry, stuffed it all into a spare Amazon box, and shoved it behind all her unworn clothes, let it get buried. She'd done the same thing with the feelings in her chest.

Allie digs the box out instead of thinking about Cassandra. She feels a little shaky all over, unsteady. It's mostly trinkets inside- a kazoo from camp, the cheap little bear Harry had won at the fair, several printed photos of the two of them, all lanky limbs and toothy smiles, Harry's hair still all over the place. There's Harry's copy of The Sorcerer's Stone that Allie never gave back. At the bottom of the box, she finds one of the friendship bracelets she'd made for them. This one, hers, was blue and gold, and it had ended up too big for her wrist, so she'd tied it around her ankle and worn it for a year and half until it had fallen off and ended up in this box instead.

Harry's had been black and white and shades of gray. She'd always thought of him like that, tonal, shifting. She'd tied it on his wrist, ten years old, and said very solemnly, “ _You have to keep it forever_.”

He'd looked back at her, serious and sure, always so sure. “I promise.”

It's so long ago now, she doesn't even remember when he'd stopped wearing it. It had been there, everyday, a constant piece of him, and then just gone. Much like Allie herself.

She isn't sure how long she sits there, turning those little pieces of the past over in her hands. It seems like so little, now, to represent everything that has and hasn't happened since then. Allie feels like it should be bigger, somehow.

At half past six, her mother calls her down to dinner, and Allie shoves the box of memories under her bed, where Cassandra won't see them. She sits at dinner with her mom and dad and Cassandra and everyone not saying anything about what they're all thinking about- Cassandra's heart. It's quiet, where usually there is noise, and Allie doesn't know if she's imagining it, but the light feels colder than she's used to.

After dinner, Cassandra follows her up the stairs and into her bedroom, closing the door behind her. Allie's heart leaps into her throat.

“We should talk about it.”

“I don't want to.” Why can't Cassandra see that talking about it makes it real? That Allie has never been afraid of anything like she's been afraid of this.

“We still should.” Cassandra sits down on the bed next to her, just a little dip of space. Allie has a sudden, horrible thought that one day, she won't be there, not even to make a tiny dip in the surface of her bed. Cassandra has always been right there, next to her.

“Not tonight.”

Cassandra's quiet for a long moment. “Not tonight, then.”

Allie waits until the house is dark and sleeping, then she slips down the stairs, skips the second from the bottom where it creaks, and offers herself to the cold air. She walks, aimless, up and down streets, scuffs her feet on the pavement, and when she tilts her face to the stars, she knows where she's going.

Allie was twelve when she perfected scaling the trellis up to the roof outside Harry's window. They'd used it for escapes more than once, or sometimes just because they could. Her body remembers all the proper places to put her hands and feet, even when she's spent so many years trying to forget.

She hesitates once she's on the roof. Maybe she shouldn't have come here. It's not too late to go home. She could climb back down, walk home, go back to bed before anyone even notices she's gone. Instead, she takes out her phone, keys in the familiar number that's not in her contacts but she knows by heart anyway; she prays it hasn't changed.

_Window._

She waits a minute. Two. The light shifts in the room behind the blinds, and then they're being drawn up, and there he is, hair standing up like maybe he'd been asleep. It's late, he'd probably been asleep. They look at each other through the glass. Allie can see her breath, little puffs of crystals in the air. Harry opens the window.

“Can I stay here tonight?” Allie doesn't let herself think about it, she just lets the words roll off her tongue. She thinks she sees a moment of hesitation in Harry's eyes, but he steps back from the open window so she can climb in.

His room is dark, just a small light on next to his bed, sheets rumpled. Allie's suddenly very aware of the fact that she came here, climbed through his window like she has some right to any of this. Harry's standing next to her, quiet. And she's thinking about Friday night, the bruise on her collarbone and how warm his hands were on her skin. She's thinking about yesterday, when her hair had still been wet and they'd both smelled like chlorine and tasted like orange popsicles.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Harry asks, shoulders hunched, likes he's the one who needs to protect himself from something. Like he's the vulnerable one in all this.

“I don't know,” Allie says, surprised her voice comes out so steady. “Do you have anything you want to say?”

Harry's head jerks up, shoulders straightening, lips parted. “Oh, am I allowed to this time?” His voice is low, but every word is weighted down with anger. She isn't ready for it; it's not what she expected. He's angry with her. How long has he been angry with her?

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“We didn't talk about it last time because you decided not to. Not because I didn't have anything to say, so don't act like I was the asshole in that situation.”

“A kiss at thirteen is a little different from fucking on the couch in Jason's storage room,” Allie snaps.

Harry's expression has settled, cool. “A _first_ kiss. Don't pretend like that didn't matter.”

Allie's stomach clenches. It had mattered. It still does, but she doesn't know how to look at that truth and not fall apart. “That was years ago, Harry.”

“So was everything between us. And you still came here.”

“I don't know why I did. I shouldn't have. We're not friends. You're not my friend anymore, so-”

She stops because Harry is smiling, but there's no joy in it. The edge of it is cruel. “Let's not rewrite history, Allie. I didn't stop being your friend; you stopped being mine.”

Allie looks away from him, as if not looking will make it less true. She'd buried the shame of the end of that summer deep, so deep so she didn't have to face it. She hadn't lost him, she'd cut him away. She'd done it on purpose. They both know he's right.

“What are you doing here, Allie?” he asks, finally, a hand through his hair. “Why are you talking to me again?”

“I can't talk to you?”

“Since when have you wanted to?”

Allie stares at the bed, at the wrinkled sheets, the ones she knows will be soft against her skin. She's not sure she ever stopped wanting to talk to Harry. She convinced herself she did. She convinced herself he changed, that she didn't like the person he'd become, and he _has_ changed, they both have, time does that, but it had been excuses, so she didn't have to face the fact that she'd burned a friend. The truth is, she'd punished both of them. Sometimes, she's not even sure why.

“Cassandra might be dying. And if she is, I don't want to know. I don't want to think about anything. And I don't trust anybody else.”

“Okay.”

Allie looks sharply at him. There's a softness that's returned to his jaw. “Okay?”

Harry shrugs. “That feels like the truth.” Allie's lost for words, still frozen to the spot, unsure where Harry's anger has all gone. Anger isn't like that for her, nothing is like that for her, everything burns and burns and burns, slow and steady inside her.

“You wanna go to bed?” He seems so unconcerned, Harry Bingham sure, that before she even processes it, Allie's following his lead, kicking off her shoes, and after a moment's thought, her pants, and crawling under his blankets.

Harry's warm, always so warm, and when he rolls away to click off the light, Allie feels the distance, no matter how momentary. She'd been eight, the first time she'd fallen asleep next to Harry. Half her life ago. It shouldn't, but it feels almost as easy as it did all those years ago, except... Except she can't stop thinking about what he said, what she did.

“I'm sorry,” she whispers. Allie doesn't elaborate. She doesn't know how to apologize for all of it, for the way she'd run away, cut him out, maybe broken both their hearts a little bit. It's not like he doesn't know what she's talking about.

“I mean, it was pretty shitty of you,” Harry responds, but there's warmth in his voice, and he tugs on a strand of her hair. In the almost darkness, she can just make out that his lips are quirked playfully.

Allie chokes out a laugh, tears on her cheeks. She knows she hurt him. She knows she doesn't deserve this comfort. But he offers it, so she takes it anyway, curling against him, pressing her cheek into his chest and listening to his heartbeat.

“I don't need you to be sorry about it,” Harry murmurs, his voice a low rumble against her cheek. “I just need you not to do it again.”

Allie squeezes her eyes closed. She wants to promise him that. She wants to think that's not who she is anymore. But Allie knows, she knows, that when she gets spooked, she runs. She doesn't trust herself to make that promise.

“I really miss you,” is what she says instead.

* * *

Allie wakes up to her phone alarm blaring, too loud, limbs tangled with Harry's, his face tucked into her neck.

“Harry!” she says, trying to get up, and failing, because Harry's wound around her like vines up a wall, holding her back. “School!”

“Fuck school,” Harry murmurs into her neck.

“We did that on Monday,” Allie replies, exasperated, because she still has not managed to move an inch and he's warm and his lips brush against her neck when he speaks and send little shivers down her spine.

“Yes, and it was the best Monday I've ever had. Let's do it again.”

“We can't!”

“Why not?”

“Someone will notice.” Her parents, for one. Her mother is hardly going to buy the 'walking around because I didn't want to be at school without Cassandra' excuse again, particularly not when Cassandra will be at school.

“You slept here. Someone probably already has.”

Allie's stomach drops. He's right. She hadn't been thinking about consequences last night; she hadn't cared. But in the bright, morning light, she can hardly believe herself. She snuck out and she didn't come home. By now, she's already in a world of trouble.

“If you're going to get yelled at, you might at least earn it first,” Harry says reasonably, tilting his face so he can look her in the eyes. His are full of mischief. She shouldn't.

“What did you have in mind?” Allie asks. She's already fucked. He's right, she wants to earn it.

They drive an hour and half out to the coast. Harry's family has an eight car garage, Porsches, Jaguars, Mercedes, Allie doesn't even know what. But the car Harry picks for their trip is some sort of hulking truck, so big Allie has to literally climb to get into it. He says something about it being the truck he takes camping. Allie turns her phone off and tucks it into the glove compartment, no need to find out how much trouble she's in early. She's actually really good at not facing things.

Once they get out of town, Harry turns his music up loud, windows cracked, even though it's cold, and for a little while, Allie feels like they exist out of time, like maybe they're the only two people left in the world, in the universe. It feels a little something like being a child.

The beach is windy, way too cold, but they venture out anyway, shoes off, sand freezing against their toes, splashing in the waves lapping at the sand, just enough to get their feet wet. They aren't supposed to be here. It's so frigid, Allie's breath gets caught in her throat. There's something magical about it, wild, and reckless, and overwhelming. Like howling at the moon, or screaming at the stars. She feels raw. She feels more alive, present, right _now._ She can't remember the last time she felt that.

When they can no longer feel their toes or noses, they stumble back to Harry's trucks, shoes dangling from icy fingertips, and wrap themselves in flannel blankets and climb into the bed of his truck to watch the ocean. The day is sharp, gray and gray and gray, all shades like Harry.

Allie finds herself leaning against him, for warmth, or maybe just because she wants to. Harry unfolds an arm and wraps her inside his blanket with him, no hesitation, sure the way she remembers. Everything would be so much easier if this was all there was, just this moment, stretching out forever and ever, ocean waves and gray skies and Harry's body heat.

They find a little beachside shop and order ice cream sundaes for lunch, piles of whipped cream and drowning in chocolate sauce. It's decadent. It's a little obscene. It's one of the things Allie's parents never let her order when she was a kid, too big, too much sugar, too wasteful- _You'll never finish it_. She doesn't, and she doesn't care. That's never been the point.

The town by the beach is small, really just one street with a collection of clustered buildings, so they go in every store. One sells plastic sunglasses shaped like sharks, which Allie makes Harry wear so she can take a picture. Another sells only porcelain figurines. There's a thrift shop and an old record store, and even a place the refurbishes vintage furniture. Allie buys a collection of clattering silver bangles from the thrift store for $3.75.

The sun goes down early, and they watch it from the bed of Harry's truck, before driving home, winding roads in the dark. Harry plays his music softly this time, and Allie falls asleep with her feet on the dash and her head against the window.

When she wakes up, they're parked in Harry's driveway, and his hand is on her shoulder. She feels a sudden spike of dread in her gut, like now that they've stopped moving, everything has just caught up. She knows her responsibilities are waiting for her, tucked carefully away in the glove compartment.

“Do you want me to drive you home?”

 _No. Yes._ She should go home. She needs to go home. By now, she's likely caused a panic. Allie pops the glove compartment open and powers on her phone. It starts chiming immediately, insistently. She silences it and watches the notifications roll in. She ignores the phone calls, the voicemails, and instead opens her messages and clicks on Cassandra. There's a long stream of _where are you? Are you okay? Call me!_

Allie types out a quick message. _I'm fine. I'm safe. I'll explain when I get home._

She's not sure how she's going to explain any of this, ever. “I don't wanna go home yet.”

Harry turns his ring around his little finger, watching her. “You want to help me make dinner?”

Harry doesn't know how to cook. Or, to be completely fair, his cooking expertise extends to spaghetti and sticking frozen garlic bread in the oven.

“I can do smoothies and scrambled eggs and a really good cup of coffee, too.” Harry corrects her, when she teases him about it.

“Truly a culinary master.”

Harry bows dramatically, sending her into a surprised fit of giggles. “I try.”

It's not half bad, actually. Maybe that's because all she's eaten today is three quarters of an ice cream sundae, or maybe it's because it's simple, and comforting, and warm. Allie tries not to overthink it. That would be a first for her, not overthinking.

It lasts until the dishes are washed and put away, and there's no way left to pretend. Her phone feels heavy in her pocket, silenced. Allie's thinking about how everything comes crashing down when she goes home. She goes home and she has to figure out what to say about her behavior. She goes home and Harry's all alone in this house. Allie slides her finger along the edge of her thumbnail, where her pink polish is chipping off.

“Are you staying tonight?” Harry's words are quiet, but not vulnerable. He asks like he would be okay with any answer. Allie isn't sure how true that is, how much of what Harry shows her and the world is just a carefully composed mask. He's so used to pretending, she thinks he doesn't even notice he's doing it anymore.

“Can I?”

“Sure. I'm not the one who has to talk to your parents about it later.” He grins at her, the slightest quirk to an eyebrow.

“You should probably worry more about Cassandra.”

Harry's resulting laugh is a surprised little huff of air. “I probably should be.”

So then it's settled. They watch some movie Harry likes about gangsters, one Allie vaguely remembers they watched a long time ago when they were too young, and then they trail up the stairs to Harry's room, where he passes her an oversized t-shirt and a pair of shorts without comment. He even breaks out a brand new toothbrush after a little digging in a hall closet.

“We could pretty much run a hotel with the way my mom keeps the house stocked,” Harry comments.

“With this many guest rooms you _could_ run a hotel.”

They brush their teeth side by side, elbowing each other at the sink, vying for space, and laughing so much it's difficult to finish.

It's easy until it isn't. It's only after they've climbed into bed, turned the lights out, and the silence has descended, that Allie's brain starts going too fast. What is she doing here? What is this _thing_ between her and Harry? What if Cassandra is so sick she's going to die and Allie is here hiding from it? What are her parents going to do when she comes home? Is there as much tension in the air between them as it feels like to her, or is she just imagining it?

Harry clicks the bedside light back on. “I have an idea.”

He drags blankets out from practically every hall closet, Christmas lights from the attic, pillows from all the guest rooms, and together they string up their most elaborate blanket fort to date, right in the middle of the living room.

It glows inside, warm, twinklings lights draped all over like something out of a fairytale, and Allie crawls into the space and flops onto her back and stares up at them splayed across the makeshift ceiling like stars.

Harry follows her in, grinning, and settling down close enough that she could touch him easily, if she wanted to. She might want to.

“When is your family coming home?” She asks, because it's been days, there's been no sign of them, just a big house and too much space and Harry.

“I don't know.”

“And if one of your parents comes home and finds us staked out in your living room?”

“I don't know. But to find out they'd actually have to bother to check if I'm still breathing, so you shouldn't worry about it. That's not too high on the priority list.”

Allie turns her head so she can look at him, study the slope of his nose and the tension in his jaw. Sometimes, with Harry, it's better not to say anything at all. That's something she remembers about him, that he doesn't take well to sympathy. He tends to see it as pity and balks at it. She thinks about what she said to him the other night, about how Cassandra could be dying, how he'd had no words for her. Words won't make anything better. She takes his hand.

Allie isn't sure how long they just lie like that, on their backs, side by side, fingers twisted together. Being with Harry feels like letting go. The clamor inside her chest isn't gone, it's just calmer. Something about having him beside her makes it bearable.

Harry turns his head, so they're looking at each other, noses nearly brushing. When he kisses her, it's warm and soft and sleepy. She hasn't kissed him like this before, slow and contented, just because they can. Honestly, she hasn't kissed anyone like this before. Warmth blossoms behind her ribs, the birth of a star, heating her up from the inside. It feels a little dangerous.

His fingers creep under the hem of her shirt. One hand settles against the swell of her hip, the other tracing her ribs. Allie has a bruise from his mouth on her collarbone. She's spent the last few days noticing it every time she glances in the bathroom mirror, tracing the outline of it. It's started to fade a little. She wants a new one.

She pushes Harry's shirt up his back, and he helps her, ducking out of it- or trying to. The hem of it gets caught for a moment, and they fumble with it, before Allie starts laughing. The sound bubbles from somewhere deep in her gut, and it's not even this, it's everything, that she's taking Harry Bingham's clothes off in a blanket fort when a week ago she wasn't speaking to him, when a week ago he was as impossible to grasp as the stars.

Harry gets free of his shirt, and rolls his eyes at her, but his smile is too wide, the one that crinkles the corners of his eyes, his real one, to pull off any sort of offense. He leans over her to kiss the tip of her nose.

“This should be weirder, right?” Allie asks, sliding a hand around his neck and slipping fingers into his hair.

Harry's eyes light up, teasing. “You're into weird?”

“Shut up.” But she's giggling again. “I just meant, last week we weren't friends and now we're...”

“Clearly very smooth and competent lovers?” Harry suggests.

Allie snorts. “You know what I mean.” She doesn't even feel nervous about this, even though Harry's practically lying on top of her, propped up on his elbows, and the last two times they didn't really talk about anything, they just acted.

“We're friends,” Harry says, finally, slow. “It got a little fucked up for a bit, that's all.”

“And now?” She does feel the slightest bit of anxiety here, but mostly she feels vulnerable, like she's cracked open her ribs and exposed the fluttery pulse of her heart.

“Now I wanna keep kissing you.” It's a non-answer, but Allie takes it. She doesn't know the answer to that question, either. And she wants to keep kissing him too.

Allie's shirt comes off easier than Harry's. She'd kept her bra on under it when she'd changed, so Harry's fingers ghost along the edge of the underwire, tracing the red marks where it's pushed up and left behind indents in her skin.

“Has anyone ever gone down on you?” Harry asks, and his fingers feel so warm, like a brand against her ribs. Allie feels the heat of her own blush glowing in her cheeks, but she tells him the truth, shakes her head no.

“Can I?”

She hesitates. It feels intimate in a way she doesn't have words for. It comes with a vulnerability she hadn't even experienced on Friday night, when she had no idea what she was doing and she'd never even been naked with someone before. And yet... the thought of it is also exciting, alluring, and there's one simple fact that has remained true in every interaction she's had with Harry; she trusts him.

“Yeah.”

The smile that spreads across Harry's face is wide, almost blinding. “Yeah?”

His expression is so bright, so thrilled, Allie laughs. “Yeah.”

Harry swoops in and kisses her cheek. She's still laughing.

Later, in the glow of the Christmas lights, the bruise of Allie's collarbone is still fading, but she has a new one on her inner thigh, and she's not sure her limbs have ever felt looser, the clamor in her chest just a whisper. Harry's eyelashes are brushing his cheeks for longer and longer, but he's still looking at her, lying on his stomach, head pillowed on one of his arms.

Allie reaches out and touches his cheek. Harry's eyes dip closed. He's so pretty, sometimes she feels like she can't breathe. It's too hot in the blanket fort to stay wrapped up in each other, beads of sweat on the backs of their necks, so Allie doesn't let her hand linger.

It's late now, and in the morning this peace will be broken, but right now, Allie doesn't feel it. Instead, she feels sleepy and sated and warm, so warm. She's just starting to drift, somewhere gentle and hazy, when she feels Harry's hand against hers. He slots their fingers together. The last thing Allie remembers processing before she falls asleep is the feel of the cool metal of his ring against her skin.

The morning dawns with a clear blue sky and a sharp wind that makes the glass in the windows creak and shudder. Allie gets dressed slowly, reluctant. The longer she's put off going home, the less she wants to do it. But it's time. No matter how little she wants to, she has to face the consequences of her decisions.

She says goodbye to Harry by the front door. He's still in his pajamas, hair sticking up in every direction, eyelids heavy. His coffee is brewing in the kitchen. He's not a morning person.

“See you at school?” he asks.

“If my mom lets me go.” She stands up on her tiptoes to kiss him one last time before she goes. She could stay cocooned in his warmth all day, but she won't. Instead, she steps back, one hand on the knob for the front door.

“Bye.”

Harry's smile is small but warm. “Give 'em hell, Pressman.”

And then she's gone.

* * *

The year Harry had won 8th grade class president, Cassandra had started pulling away from Allie. They'd always been close, only 14 months apart in age, joined at the hip, Allie just a step behind her sister, following in her wake. That year, things had been different.

It had been slow, the way Cassandra had slid away from her, so slow that Allie hadn't noticed it at first. It was just that you had to be 13 to go on the trip for Lexie's birthday, so Allie wasn't old enough. It was that Cassandra had theater camp on the weekends, and Allie didn't like being on stage. Little things. But sometime in that year, Cassandra had stopped sneaking into Allie's room at night to share secrets. She'd stopped braiding Allie's hair for school. She'd stopped always inviting Allie along with her friends.

Cassandra never once said it was about Harry. But Allie hadn't been stupid. She'd seen the way they'd snap at each other, the way Cassandra always removed herself if Harry came over to the house. She'd seen the condescending, slightly pitying, looks Cassandra had directed at the pair of them. She'd heard the things Cassandra said to her friends about Harry.

It had seeped in slowly, just a little poison here and there. Cassandra's disapproval had eaten away at her, filled her up to the brim with doubts and fears and embarrassment. In the end, she hadn't been strong enough to resist it. The summer before she started eighth grade blurs out in her memory, a well of guilt and humidity, the last summer she'd been able to call Harry her best friend.

Three days before school had been set to start, they'd climbed out onto his rooftop, sat under the stars, shoulder to shoulder, same as always. When he'd kissed her, her first kiss, Allie had let him. She thinks she might have kissed him back, but only for a moment.

Some part of her had wanted to kiss Harry for a long time. Some part of her couldn't think of anything, but what Cassandra would say. When she climbed down his trellis five minutes later, it had felt like fleeing. They had never talked about it. In fact, after that night, Allie had hardly spoken to Harry at all. She'd walked away from five years of starry nights and whispered secrets and fingers tangled together. Harry had let her. And he'd never asked her why.

If he had, she's not sure she would have been able to explain it. It had felt like the safe choice. It had brought her sister back to her. She'd sacrificed that little blooming star in her chest to quell an ocean of fear. She'd saved them both some pain, the inevitably of it falling apart while they tried to hold on. She'd locked it away, all those years, mostly the summers, and she'd resolutely not thought about it. She'd told herself, one day, she'd forget. But she never had.

Her whole family is sitting at the kitchen island when Allie walks into the house. Their heads turn as one, and it's so painfully quiet, Allie can feel her heartbeat in her ears.

“Where the fuck have you been?”

Allie's never heard her mother curse before. Not even once. She's so shocked by it, that the words she'd been planning to say just won't come out.

“Well?”

“I- I was with a friend.”

“Which friend? Because we called your friends and none of them seem to have seen you.” Her mother stands up from the table where Cassandra and her father have paused over their breakfasts, but don't seem particularly interested in making eye contact with anyone.

“It doesn't matter. I'm leaving them out of this.”

Her mother lets out a strangled laugh. “You don't get to decide that _now_. You've been gone for _twenty four hours_ , Allie! Lord only knows what you've been doing!”

“Oh my god, there are like 3,000 people in this whole goddamn town, _nothing_ happens here! You want to know what I've been doing for the last day? I went to the beach. I ate an ice cream sundae for lunch. I built a big ridiculous blanket fort. It's not exactly the international crisis you're picturing.” She has, also, to be fair, been sleeping with Harry Bingham. But she's not about to bring that up.

“You don't get to minimize this, Allison.”

Allie flinches. Her mother only uses her full name when she's very, _very_ upset. The last time, she'd been thirteen and accidentally broken her grandmother's antique china set.

“We have to get ready for school,” Cassandra interjects, soft, but sturdy. She looks, for all the world, like a yelling match hasn't just gone down right in front of her.

Their mother looks between them, jaw clenched. “Fine. Go get ready for school. Cassandra, make sure she goes and stays there. I'm picking you up after.”

Allie would protest if she didn't know that this was the only escape she's going to get. She scampers up the stairs with Cassandra on her heels, heart pounding too hard against her ribs. They've only delayed their mother's wrath, not quelled it.

Cassandra catches her wrist on the way into her room. “Are you going to tell me where you really were?”

“That was the truth,” Allie says. “Honest to God.”

“But you won't say who you were with.”

She wants to. She's so tired of the heaviness of this secret. But right now, Cassandra is on her side, backing her. Allie has a feeling that might change if she finds out about Harry.

“Not yet.”

Cassandra watches her for a long moment, but when she speaks, it's just to say, “You better get ready for school.”

At school, Cassandra shadows her from class to class, like she's afraid Allie might make a break for it. She might. She doesn't see Harry in the morning, but there's nothing particularly unusual about that. They don't have classes together, and Allie and Cassandra had very nearly been late to school.

Allie has Home Economics after lunch. She doesn't hate it, but she hadn't picked it as a class, either. It had been included in her schedule because too many people wanted into a photography class and they'd given preference to seniors. This means, however, that she and Cassandra, whose next class is Marketing, have to get to classes clear on opposite sides of the school. There's no plausible way for Cassandra to walk Allie all the way past the auditorium and down the English hall to the Home Ec rooms and also get back to her class on time.

They part ways outside of the cafeteria, and Allie can feel Cassandra's eyes on her back, all the way down the hall. Turning the corner is like lifting a weight from her chest. She has no intention to do anything other than go to class, but it still feels good to be free. She _could_ leave, if she wanted to.

Harry's leaning on the wall outside the auditorium, next to the doors that lead backstage, casual, grinning and chatting with people passing. The corners of his eyes crinkle when he spots her. He doesn't have to say anything for her to know he wants her to follow when he slides through the doors.

He's waiting for her in one of the dressing rooms, one of the big shared ones with a sofa in a corner and the wall all lined in mirrors. Harry's leaning against the makeup counter, still managing to look completely casual, like she just stumbled upon him.

“Hey.” She finds herself smiling. Allie hops up to sit on the counter across from him, her legs swinging.

“How bad was it?”

Allie chews on her bottom lip. “Not that bad because we had to go to school, but my mom's definitely not done with the topic. I left you out of it, just so you know.”

“You can blame me, if you want. What are you parent's going to do to me? Call mine?” Harry snorts, like this is the most unbelievable outcome he can imagine. “Good luck with that.”

“Right now my mom doesn't know I was with a guy. I think it's best to keep it that way.”

“And Cassandra?”

“She'll be harder to convince. She's watching me like if she looks away, I might just vanish.”

Harry shifts a little, touching his ring. “Yeah, I noticed that. But I meant how is she? Her heart?”

She had forgotten. For just a few moments, Allie had completely forgotten. It hits her like a ton of bricks. “I- I don't know. I didn't ask. I just-” There's panic crawling up her chest; she can't believe she blocked it out so well, she forgot to even worry. Her hands feel suddenly shaky.

Harry pushes off the counter and crosses the room to stand in front of her, so close, her knees bracket his waist. Allie throws her arms around his neck and tucks her face against his collarbone. Harry's arms are warm around her.

“I'm sorry,” he murmurs, “I didn't mean to upset you.”

“I just forgot,” she whispers. “I can't believe I forgot.” He doesn't say anything, because there's nothing to say. She leans into Harry soaks up his warmth and the comfort of his arms around her.

“Oh, sorry,” a voice stammers, followed by the sound of the dressing room door slamming. Allie, startles, lifting her head. She can just see over Harry's shoulder, and her stomach plummets down to her toes. Will is standing in the doorway, shock scrawled across his face.

Harry turns around slow, with a little side step, so he's not directly in front of Allie. There are tears on her cheeks and she wipes them away, feeling frozen.

Will breaks the silence. “Are you okay, Allie?”

“I'm fine,” she says, not sure if that's true, but there's nothing Will can do about it. She feels off kilter, like she's somehow betrayed her own feelings. Harry hasn't said anything, a solid figure next to her, quiet in a way that she's not sure suits him.

“The bell rang.” Will's watching them like if he looks hard enough, he'll be able to make sense of what he's seeing. Allie doesn't like it. Faintly, in the back of her mind, it occurs to her that this is the first time in months that seeing Will hasn't caused butterflies in her stomach.

“I should go to class.” She makes one last swipe at her cheeks, and slips off the counter, a little unsteady. Harry catches her elbow when she sways. She looks up to him, and the expression on his face is so carefully arranged, guarded. She has no idea what he's thinking at all.

“We'll talk later?” she asks, quiet, but probably not so quiet that Will can't hear.

Harry nods. “I have therapy after school. I'll text you after.”

Allie hesitates. She's late for class and Will is watching and Harry has this solid looking wall up behind his eyes that she _hates_ , and she doesn't want to walk away from him looking like that. So instead, she pushes up onto her toes and kisses him, soft, for just a moment. It's all going to come out now, anyway. She won't go letting Harry think she might be embarrassed of him.

By the time she's back on the flats of her feet, Harry's demeanor has softened. His eyes are warm. “Later,” she murmurs, and then she turns and walks past Will, who's still standing in the doorway. She can't meet his eyes.

As promised, their mother is waiting to pick them up after school. Allie hasn't been driven to or from school since she was 10. It's so close to their house and she and Cassandra always had each other- they just walked.

Her mom doesn't waste any time. “Are you going to tell me about where you were yesterday and who you were with?”

“I already did,” Allie says, glum, slamming the back door behind her. Cassandra always sits in the front, and for once, Allie isn't jealous.

“Don't lie, Allie.”

“I'm not lying. I went to the beach. That wasn't a lie.”

“And where did you sleep?”

“At a friend's.”

“That's not good enough.”

If Allie thought telling the truth would make this any better, she would. But she doesn't. What's the point of being honest if it's only going to make her mother more upset?

“I'm here, I'm fine, nothing terrible happened. Where I slept doesn't change any of that.”

“And yet, you don't want me to know.”

Allie shrugs, silent. She has nothing else to say about it. Her mother takes a deep breath, and Allie knows what's coming, because while Allie goes sullen and quiet when they argue, her mother can never seem to stop talking.

“-Mom,” Cassandra interrupts, quiet. It takes all the air out of her mother's sails. Just one word, no explanation, and their mom deflates. Cassandra has always been able to do that, calm their mother's temper by just existing, by being _her_. Allie's the one who fights with their parents, never Cassandra.

It's lucky the drive home is so short, because the silence is overwhelming, full of everything that's not being said. The moment they arrive, Allie leaps out of the car and storms up to her room before anyone can stop her. Cassandra follows.

“Allie.” Cassandra closes the door behind her, soft, calm. Sometimes Allie can't stand how _good_ Cassandra is. Maybe if her sister were a little worse, Allie's transgressions wouldn't always seem so terrible. But no, next to Cassandra, anything less than composed perfection is a failure.

“I don't want to talk about it.”

“You always run away from things,” her sister says, leaning against Allie's closed door, “but that's not always going to work.”

Allie doesn't say anything back. Cassandra's right, she does run. She doesn't know what she's supposed to do if everything catches up. Running is easier. Pretending is better.

“Where have you been?”

Allie opens her mouth to deflect, but what comes out instead is- “Why do you hate Harry?”

Cassandra blinks at her. “I don't hate Harry. Have you been with _Harry_?”

“You do! He was my best friend and you couldn't ever _stand_ him!”

“I thought _I_ was your best friend,” Cassandra says, brow furrowed, arms crossed.

“Yeah, of course you were, are, but he was too. It was different with him.” Allie isn't sure it's something that's possible to explain, that connection she'd formed with Harry. It just is. They'd been children out of place, and they'd found each other.

“O-kay.” Cassandra is looking at her with that expression she gets when she's trying to work out a particularly complicated math problem. “Well for the past few years I've been under the impression that you don't much like Harry either.”

Allie shakes her head. Because that's not true. She's never disliked Harry, she just felt like she was supposed to. She felt like she _had_ to, or she was letting her sister down. And she _misses_ him. Ever since Friday, when she'd seen him on that roof, and she couldn't shove all those feelings down anymore, she hasn't stopped missing him, wanting to be close to him, wanting to take it all back. She's angry about it, angry at herself, angry at Cassandra.

“So that's what this is, this is about Harry?”

“He was my first kiss.” _He was my first time_. “Back when we were still friends. And I ruined everything because I was so scared of what you would say, what people would think. I'm always so worried about what you're going to think and I'm so _sick_ of it, Cassandra. It's exhausting, trying to be like you. I'm just really, really tired.” She isn't sure when she started crying, but she's also pretty sure she can't stop. “And I'm still really scared. I ran away to that party on Friday because I'm too afraid to let you tell me exactly how close I am to losing you.”

Cassandra pushes off the door and crosses the room to sit down next to her. “If you would have just listened, I've been trying to tell you, I have surgery in a couple weeks. They're pretty hopeful about it.”

Allie chokes out a sob, it's relief, but still fear, because “hopeful” isn't the same thing as okay. Still, it's so much better, it feels so much better than not knowing. She should have known it would be better not to hide.

“So you won't tell mom where you've been because you've been at Harry's?”

Allie nods, swallowing down her tears. She's cried too much today. Cassandra takes a deep breath, slow and controlled. There's an expression on her face that Allie's never seen, one she doesn't understand.

“You know, I'm not as good as you give me credit for. I know we're different. I know things between me and Mom and Dad are easier, but it's not because it all comes so naturally to me. I guess, it's just... I've lived every day for last eight years with someone else's heart inside of me. Every day, knowing that some other kid had to die, so I could live. There's a family out there who lost their child, and I lived instead.

“And I wake up every single day and I think, I have to be best, the best person I can possibly be, because if I'm not, maybe I don't deserve it. Maybe they should have lived and I should have died. I have to get up, and I have to earn it. I can't waste it. And my first thought when they said my heart might be dying is that it's because I wasn't good enough. I thought, maybe I brought this on myself.”

“No, Cassandra.” That idea is unfathomable to Allie. “You're the best person I know. The best.”

Her sister swallows hard. “No, I'm not. Because you weren't wrong, earlier, about what you said about me and Harry. I knew what I was doing, I knew how much you wanted me to approve of you and your friends and what you were doing. I knew, and I... I was in the hospital and you'd made this great friend who you just fit with so well, like you didn't even have to try at all, and I couldn't just be happy for you. I didn't hate him. But I couldn't like him, because he got so much of you. And I knew I could make you feel bad about it, about him, if I said the right things at the right times, if I withheld myself in just the right way.

“It felt like...” Cassandra has tears in her eyes. “It felt like you loved him so much, you had to love me less. So I took you back. I did it on purpose. I never hated Harry, but I was jealous of him and I was so selfish.” Allie's never seen so much shame on her sister's face. “I'm really not perfect, Allie. And I'm sorry. I knew it would hurt you, and I did it anyway.”

Allie has so many emotions fighting for dominance in her chest, she has no idea which one is winning. The only thing she manages to choke out is, “I never loved you less.”

“I know. You never did, even when you should.” They're both crying, red cheeks and hunched shoulders, close but not quite touching. Allie doesn't know how to process all this. Cassandra might be okay, she has a chance to be okay. And she also hurt Allie. She hurt her on purpose. It's not something Allie ever, ever thought Cassandra would do.

“I think I should go for a little while, so you can think,” Cassandra says, standing up, visibly reining her emotions in. Allie wants to cling onto her hands and beg her to stay and tell her absolutely everything is going to be okay. She also wants to push her out the door and slam it behind her. She doesn't know how both things can be true.

“I'll be here, if you wanna talk,” Cassandra tells her, and then she goes, and she closes Allie's door just as calmly and softly as she did when she came in.

Allie doesn't know how long she lies there in her bed, staring at the wall, before Harry texts her. It must be close to dinner time, but she doesn't want to go downstairs. She doesn't think she can face her mother, who might still be looking for answers. She doesn't think she can face Cassandra, who even the thought of brings such a contradictory swirl of elation and pain.

Harry's text says, _Are you okay?_

No, Allie thinks, she's really, really not. So she doesn't text back, she calls him. Harry picks up on the third ring.

“Allie?”

“Hey.”

“What's happened?”

Too many answers crowd the back of her tongue. “Cassandra's having surgery next week.”

“Is that... a good thing?” Harry asks, tentative.

“It could be. I think it's better than the alternatives.” Allie doesn't know what the alternatives are, she hasn't let herself know anything about this. Still, Cassandra had used the word hopeful.

There's a long pause from Harry's end. “You sound upset.”

She is. Even though some of the weight of dread has lifted up off her chest, she's still scared, and she's angry, and she's ashamed. And hopeful. It's a lot, all together, a racket behind her sternum.

“Yeah,” she admits. “Can we do that thing where we pretend like everything is fine, though?”

Harry's voice is so warm. “Sure. We can do that.”

She has no memory of falling asleep. One moment, she'd been curled in her bed, Harry's voice a gentle murmur in her ear, and the next she's blinking her eyes open to morning light, her phone blaring her alarm too close to her face. Groggily, she taps the alarm off and rolls over onto her back, blinking blearily at the ceiling. It's Friday.

It's only been a week. Only one week since Cassandra had sat her down and told her about the danger to her heart. One week since she'd run away from what she hadn't wanted to hear and found herself on a rooftop with Harry Bingham. One week. It feels like a lifetime.

Her mother and Cassandra are in the kitchen, pointedly not making eye contact, when Allie comes downstairs. It's uncomfortably quiet, and Allie doesn't know precisely what's been said between them, but she assumes it has to do with her, because her mother hasn't asked her anything else about where she's been or who she's been with. That can only be Cassandra's doing.

Normally, Allie isn't particularly thrilled about going to school, but today it's a relief to get out of the house, no matter that it's starkly cold. It feels heavy inside their home, kind of the way the air gets in the summer before a big thunderstorm, weighed down. The crispness outside stings her cheeks, breath puffing out in large plumes, but its immediate and sharp and Allie doesn't mind.

“You have to figure out what you're going to tell Mom and Dad,” Cassandra says, finally, as the school comes into view. “I can't keep them off your back forever.”

“I'm not sure what there is to tell.” It's true. She's _not_ going to tell them any specifics, there's no way that would be helpful. But the bigger picture is hazy. She's avoided looking at it.

“That's why you have to figure it out.” Cassandra bumps her shoulder, and they don't say anything else about it as Will joins them in front of the school. His eyes linger a little on Allie in a way that she isn't used to, like he's looking for things that are different about her now that he knows what he knows, even though he really doesn't know anything, but she pretends like she doesn't notice, and he doesn't ask.

It takes her some time to realize that Harry isn't in school. They don't have classes together, and it's just as common as not to glimpse him in the hallways. So it isn't until lunch that she realizes he's just not there. His group of friends still cluster at the biggest lunch table, but without Harry, they all look a little subdued, there isn't a focal point.

Allie sends him a text- _Hey, are you not at school?_

She doesn't get an answer. It makes her heart jitter in her chest, anxious for no reason she can pinpoint. Except that he should be here. There's no reason he wouldn't be here. The thought trails her through the rest of the school day, to her final class, where she begins the mental debate about whether or not she can get away with ditching Cassandra after school and going to Harry's instead.

Her mother will have a conniption if she doesn't come home, and Allie doubts Cassandra will protect her much longer, but... She thinks of Harry all alone in that big house, cavernous, cold, and she has to go. She has to be sure.

By the time the final bell rings, Allie's made up her mind. She wades against the tide of students and exits through a back door, cuts two streets over, so Cassandra can't possibly spot her, and turns her feet East instead of West. It's a ten minute walk to Harry's, if she finds everything in order, she can make it back to her house before anyone has too much time to miss her.

The Bingham Mansion looks a lot bigger when she isn't invited. It's always been a colossal thing, a little bit cold, but Allie's never felt quite so intimidated by it before. She could scale the trellis below Harry's window, but on instinct, she climbs the steps to the front door, and wraps her fingers around the frigid handle. The door isn't locked.

Harry's house feels hollow on the inside, too much space and too little life to fill it. She ghosts through the foyer, and stops in the kitchen. There's a pot of coffee on the counter, but it's cold when Allie rests her hand on the outside of the glass, hours old.

She doesn't waste time with the rest of the house; she goes to Harry's room. She takes the steps slowly, heart in her throat, thinking _be okay, be okay, be okay_. His bedroom door is open, but it's so gloomy, that Allie stands in the doorway, her eyes adjusting to the light.

“Harry?”

“Allie?” His voice is low and scratchy. It reminds her of last week on the roof, when she thought he'd been drinking or crying.

She crosses the room and finds him bundled under his comforter, curled on his side. There's a blankness to his expression that makes her heart trip a little in her chest.

“Hey. You weren't at school today.”

Harry doesn't say anything, but his eyes fasten on her, though their focus seems to slip around her edges. He just looks at her.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah.” There's so little of Harry in it, that's the only way Allie can think to describe it.

“You don't really seem okay.”

“I'm just tired.”

Allie kneels next to the bed, so she can look him in the face. She isn't sure what she's doing. “Did something happen?”

Harry's fingers curl a little around the edge of his comforter. “My dad called this morning.”

 _And?_ Allie wants to prompt, but the way he says it makes her feel like that's supposed to be an explanation, like that in and of itself is the issue. Maybe it is. Allie hardly knows his father. In all these years, she feels like she's hardly even met his father.

“Harry, where's Martha?”

He's quiet. “Her sister is sick. She went to Louisiana to take care of her. We aren't sure when she's coming back.”

“How long have they all been gone?”

“A couple weeks. Three?”

“Okay.” Allie grasps his wrist, and she's thinking _three weeks?_ Three weeks in this big, empty space that's definitely more a house than a home. His skin is warm, blood pumping, under her fingers, but when she looks him in the face, he just feels far away.

“Okay,” Allie says again, trying to sort out what exactly she's supposed to do about any of this, if she can sink down into his chest and dig the Harry she knows out from behind his ribs. “How about you get up and take a shower and I'll make you something to eat?”

He blinks at her. “I'm not really hungry.”

“That's okay,” Allie thinks about what Cassandra would say, if she were the one refusing to get out of bed, “you might be by the time you're done in the shower.” Her tone is brisk, cheerful, no room for arguments or questions. “Come on, you'll see.”

Harry's eyes still betray no emotion, but when she tugs lightly on his arm, he follows her up, out from under his comfort and slowly upright. Allie takes his momentum and uses it to bundle him off to his bathroom, and then she goes downstairs to the kitchen and sits at his big marble kitchen island and panics a little bit. This, whatever exactly _this_ is, is way over her head. She lets this riot around her chest for two minutes, and then she stands up and goes to see what there is in the pantry that she might be able to make into a meal.

Allie's made grilled cheese sandwiches and a big pot of tomato soup, by the time Harry appears in the kitchen, barefoot and hair wet. He still doesn't quite look like himself, but there's a little spark in his eyes and Allie's infinitely relieved to see it.

“Hey,” he says, a hand rubbing the back of his neck.

“Hi,” Allie says back, then, “I made grilled cheese.”

Harry's lips turn up just a bit at the corners. “Thanks.”

They eat in silence, shoulders almost touching. All the things they aren't saying feel thick in the air, but Allie's good at pretending and Harry is too, so instead of asking one of the million questions she has, Allie dips her grilled cheese carefully in her soup and studies the swirling patterns on the marble countertop.

Harry clears the dishes when they're done, and runs a sink full of hot soapy water. Allie watches him, and wonders if the loose set of his shoulders is a good sign. She isn't sure if she should ask him how he's feeling or not.

“You don't need to stay.” He says it so quietly, Allie almost doesn't hear him. This feels like one of those times she shouldn't take someone at their word. She thinks about how remote he'd been, when she'd stood at the edge of his bed, like he was just lost inside himself.

“I'm not gonna leave you here alone.” Allie isn't sure exactly how she's going to avoid it. Her mother is going to _kill_ her. Every second she spends here is another second Cassandra might be creeping closer to just telling their parents everything. If they show up here, Allie isn't sure what she'll do. But even so, that statement remains true- she cannot fathom just getting up and walking out, leaving Harry by himself in this house.

“It's okay,” Harry tells her calmly, placing the last dish on the drying rack and turning around to face her as he dries his hands on a dish towel. He leans back against the counter behind him. “It's not a big deal. And I don't really like anyone seeing...” he trails off. “Well, you know.”

Allie thinks she does. Harry's usually so good at projecting, at making you see whatever he wants you to see. He isn't doing that now, he's stripped down, bare and frayed at the edges. Vulnerable. Allie doesn't like anyone seeing her vulnerable either.

“Are you asking me to leave?”

Harry's expression flickers. “No.”

“Then I'm not going anywhere.”

“Allie-”

Harry's phone rings, loud, cutting through whatever he'd meant to say. It vibrates on the marble countertop and Harry leans over to see the caller id. He silences it.

“Kelly,” he says, with a sigh.

Allie didn't realize they were talking. Not that it's her business really, she just thought... She isn't sure what she thought, that Harry was at least a little bitter about the whole thing and Kelly's with Will so they wouldn't have a lot to talk about. She would ask, except-

“She probably noticed I wasn't at school,” Harry supplies, and Allie wonders what expression her face made for him to offer up an explanation.

“Right.”

“She saw some of the really... bad times. She worries. But she doesn't know Martha isn't here.” Allie's thinking about Kelly, who is nice to absolutely everyone, who always seems so easily pulled together, who had even sent Cassandra a card all those years ago when she was in hospital. She's thinking about how if that's who Harry is used to, she's not sure she could ever compare.

“Did you love her?” Allie asks, before she can stop herself. _Does he still?_ Now's not the time. Now is _so_ not the time. She never should have asked that. Harry blinks at her, surprised. Probably because it was a rude, nosy fucking thing to ask. But he seems to actually be thinking about.

“I don't know.” Harry twists his ring around his finger. “When we broke up, I was upset. But then... I wasn't thinking about losing her. I wasn't really thinking about _her_ at all. I was just thinking that this house would be so quiet, so empty, again. If you miss someone because you miss what they gave you, but not because of who they are... is that still love?”

Allie doesn't have an answer for that. She doesn't think she's ever been in love. She gives him a helpless shrug, not quite sure why he heart feels all lodged up in her throat.

“Fuck.” Harry runs a hand through his hair. It's mostly dry now, curling a little at the tips. “Let's talk about something else.”

Their fort is still in the living room. Allie doesn't know why she thought it wouldn't be, except for that they'd never been allowed to keep them up that long as kids. But there's no one here to tell them to take it down.

When they crawl in this time, Harry brings his laptop, so they can watch X-Files. As usual, avoidance is something they both excel at, so easy not to talk about how he didn't come to school, or what his dad had said to him, or where his family is, or what her mother might say when she gets home. They curl into the pillows and blankets and grumble quietly to each other about which episodes are the best, while the world grows dark around them. They never turned the Christmas lights on.

Allie isn't sure exactly when she drifts off, but at some point she wakes up, and the computer screen is dark. Harry's still lying next to her, and she thinks he's awake.

“Harry?”

“Mhm?” Awake, but only on the edge of it.

“Would you tell me if things got really bad again?”

There's a long pause. “Would you really want me to?”

“Yes.” She knows this is true. She doesn't know what she would do, but she knows this is absolutely the truth.

“Okay,” he breathes.

“Pinky promise?”

Harry's hand brushes against her, fumbling a little in the low light. He hooks his finger around hers, and he's so close, almost close enough that she feels like she should be able to hear his heartbeat. Harry leans just a little closer. He kisses her once, slow, undemanding. When he pulls back, all Allie can see is his profile in the dark. His pinky is still curled up with hers.

“Is this real, or is this just because you're lonely?” Allie whispers. It's the half light that makes her brave, the way his face is softened by shadows, the sharpness of his eyes just a small gleam, scattering light. He's quiet for a long moment, like maybe he just won't answer.

“I don't know.” He sounds sincere. He sounds sorry.

“Okay,” Allie says, soft, but there's an ache behind her sternum that says maybe it's not. But then, maybe she deserves that.

**Author's Note:**

> so, this kind of happened. 
> 
> I am still working on Harry's POV companion fic, but it got really heavy, so I started writing this as well (which then got heavier than expected, because what else is new with me?? rofl) and anyway, is it realistic at all? no. do I give a fuck? also no. I just wanted to basically marinate in a fic about nostalgia and emotion. and anyway, here we are. 
> 
> originally this was going to be a one-shot, but it got much longer than anticipated (lol, again, why am I surprised?) and so I've split it into two pieces, part 2 coming as soon as I can finish it up! 
> 
> you can always come hang out with my on [tumblr](https://restlessqueenx.tumblr.com/), though I'm not super active.


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